'He Was Always Looking For More'

Earnest Boy Changed After Law School, Say Former Friends And Acquaintances

Before the spiky hair and foul-mouthed bravado, before the mansions, yachts, cars and celebrities, before the crushing fraud charges and stark jail cell, Scott Rothstein was a curly-haired youth who serenaded a high school girlfriend with Beatles tunes.

"He was a very nice Jewish kid, cute, loved to sing," said Stacey Mahler Hayes, now of Long Island. "The kind of kid you'd bring home to your mother."

Somewhere during Rothstein's growth from earnest teenager to motivated law student to ambitious attorney, he chose a path that ended, according to an FBI agent, with him masterminding what could be the largest fraud in South Florida history.

"Once he became an attorney, and he was trying to move up, and he saw that money ... that's when he really started to change," said Jay Ravede, a Plantation insurance agent who knew Rothstein during college, law school and his early days as a lawyer. "He was always looking for more. He wanted to make more money."

And he did, according to the federal racketeering and fraud charges filed against him last week. Prosecutors said that after engineering a massive Ponzi scheme in 2005, Rothstein raked in $1.2 billion from investors and spent much of it on a lavish lifestyle.

He is now in a jail cell in Miami awaiting a trial tentatively scheduled for January. He has pleaded not guilty.

Rothstein's beginnings were humble. The son of a salesman who specialized in condoms and flavored toothpaste, Rothstein, 47, moved in 1976 from the Bronx to Lauderhill, where his parents rented an apartment.

"Very lower middle class," was how Leonard "Butch" Brunky, Rothstein's best friend from those days, described it.

"Neither one of our families had any money. We both came from pretty much nothing," recalled Brunky, now of Washington Township, Mich.

The pair hung out in Rothstein's apartment, playing guitar, or took to the tennis court. Like many of the figures from his past intervewed for this story, Brunky remembered Rothstein fondly.

"He was a very giving, good kid," he said. "If anything shady was going on, Scott was the last one to be involved."

Mark Nichols, now an attorney in Kentucky, graduated from Boyd Anderson High School in 1979, a year before Rothstein.

"He was a great guy, full of energy, very outgoing, very bright, intelligent, possessed leadership qualities," Nichols said.

As a junior, Rothstein played guitar and sang in a rock band, covering songs by Led Zeppelin and Lynyrd Skynyrd, sometimes landing gigs in a restaurant. He also sang in the school choir and a barbershop quartet.

Rothstein, Nichols and others formed a committee to advocate the construction of a school auditorium, organizing a rally of about 200 students before the Broward School Board.

At his class graduation in 1980, Rothstein sang We May Never Pass This Way Again.

Friends from that time are trying to reconcile the guy they knew with the man described in news stories and accused in court documents.

"I don't think he started corrupt," Nichols said.

Hayes, two years younger, experienced Rothstein's tender side.

"He liked me," she said. "We kissed. We made out. He used to sing Yesterday."

Hayes, like other friends of Rothstein in those years, said she never imagined that one day he would be at the center of a sweeping corruption investigation.

"I didn't know he was capable of something like that," she said.

Yet, Rothstein often was remembered as a smooth talker with an irresistable patina of charm.

"He was personable, a real talkative guy, very friendly and outgoing," said Ravede, who was a workout buddy during Rothstein's years at the University of Florida from 1984 to 1988.

Rothstein joined the Sigma Nu fraternity and majored in criminal justice before graduating with a bachelor of arts degree and entering law school.

"He's a great talker, a great schmoozer," said Scott Mager, a Fort Lauderdale attorney who was in Rothstein's law class at Nova Southeastern University. "There was never any secret of his good oral skills."

In law school, Rothstein exhibited a growing need for attention.

"He was always trying to stand out," said classmate Judith Homko, now a Fort Lauderdale lawyer.

"I would say he probably had more of an outgoing personality than most students," law Professor Mark Dobson recalled.

Robert Flayman roomed for a time with Rothstein in a small apartment during their law school days. Rothstein was motivated and focused on his education, said Flayman, now a Fort Lauderdale claims attorney.

"I would describe him as the typical starving student" who lived on the cheap and drove a used compact car, Flayman said.

"The Scott that I knew was a good person, a good family man, a good friend," his former roommate said.

However, Ravede saw a change when his friend started work at a Hollywood law firm after his 1988 graduation from law school. Rothstein began flashing gold bracelets and fancy watches, wearing tailored $800 suits and driving sports cars.